


I Miss the Fire

by InFamousHero



Category: Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
Genre: Angst, Complicated Relationships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Love/Hate, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-04-07
Packaged: 2019-04-19 19:24:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14244099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InFamousHero/pseuds/InFamousHero
Summary: All the Exile did was state a fact and that alone was enough to make something fracture inside her.





	I Miss the Fire

Blazing orange blurred across her vision and her arms went numb, jerking to her right with the force of Kara’s swing.  With a sizzling hiss –clack-clatter her lightsabre went flying from her hands and Atris stumbled, held her breath, waited. She waited for only a second, hanging, expecting the next blink of her eyes to bring Kara’s blade into final, deathly focus.

It never came. She blinked, lived, and fell to her knees, breathing hard and watching the sweat drip from her brow, nose and chin. It dappled a strip of burnt cloth beneath her, a white shred loosed from her robes by Kara’s ever present blade, the blows that came _too close._

The hiss of a lightsabre dying made her lift her head and  stare at Kara, a dark silhouette looming over her in the dimly lit chamber, her frame almost haloed by the dull red right of the holocrons.

She could still feel them plucking at her thoughts, _whispering…_

Once upon a time, Atris remembered Kara having steely grey eyes as steady as a mountain, inspiring hope with but a look. They nearly drew her in back then, prodding at some foolish, burgeoning notion in the pit of her heart that they could really make a difference. They could _fix it_ if they just went out there and _saved_ people like Jedi were supposed to.

Now…

Now those eyes told a different story. Kara stared at her with eyes like smouldering embers, flaring between red, orange and yellow as the moods took her. Right now they were yellow. They should have disgusted her and at first they did, on the _surface_ they did, yet Kara still had the nerve to draw her in and Atris _bristled_. Even like this, even after everything between them…

Atris clenched her hands against uncaring durasteel.

“Do it!” she screamed, guttural in the maelstrom of emotion she was trying and failing to contain. “End this!”

“No.”

The response was so immediate, so final, that Atris was struck breathless. She grasped desperately to understand why Kara did what she did and struggled not to spit spiteful nothings, her mind falling into a mad dash for words to throw in her face, to _goad_ Kara into delivering that final blow. But nothing came to mind. She was stuck here, doomed to confront something that she knew would ultimately win.

The laugh that came out of her was bitter and halting. She shakily rose to her feet, glaring at this woman who _dared_ have such an effect on her life. “Is it pity that stays your blade? Mercy?” she rasped, squaring her shoulders, lifting her chin to reclaim some manner of control or dignity, she wasn’t sure which. “I thought you were beyond that.”

Kara’s expression did not change, it did not betray if the barb hurt and Atris clenched her hands again. This wasn’t how things were meant to be, Kara wasn’t supposed to be so calm and immovable, she was the corrupt one, _she_ was the one who fell, the one who—

Kara’s voice came out soft. “You fell.”

Atris clenched her teeth. She wanted to fire back, wanted to scream and yell and defend herself from being judged by _Kara_ of all people. Her mind failed to find anything. Everything she had was already in play, she had no pieces left, no cards to show, no threads to pull—they had both exhausted their arguments.

All Kara did was state a fact and that alone was enough to make something fracture inside her.

Atris launched herself at Kara, aching, exhausted and desperate. But her fists were caught easily. Kara moved her so deftly that her momentum carried her, making her easy to capture in a hug of all things. She froze, paralysed by the pressure of Kara’s arms wrapping securely around her frame. It felt increasingly hard to breathe and she swallowed around a growing pain in her throat and chest. A hot sting flooded her eyes and she screwed them shut, trying to continue standing, _trying_ to ignore the tremble spreading from the pit of her stomach to the rest of her body and the sour taste in her mouth.

Her legs gave out.

Everything gave out.

The first sob was sharp and abrupt, followed by a halting wheeze, and then she began to _wail_.

Execution or death in battle would have been a mercy, it would have spared her this maelstrom, this unforgiving storm of _feeling_ as every carefully constructed wall came tumbling down.

She sank and Kara sank with her, lowering them to the floor and holding tight. Atris clawed at Kara, at her robes, desperate for an anchor and snarling the fabric amongst her fingers. She bowed her head into the crook of Kara’s neck, kicking weakly at the floor with wave after wave of raw emotion overpowering any sense of control.

Her voice was just as primal, a wordless outpouring of unsanctioned, unacceptable and _incorrect_ feelings and thoughts she had worked so very hard to kill or bury.

 

Atris couldn’t exactly tell when she lost consciousness. It didn’t feel like much time had passed when she came to and found she was free of those insidious whispers. She could still feel them nearby but…

She opened her eyes fully and saw the walls of her private room from the vantage of her bed. It was a modestly sized room hidden beyond her meditation chamber. That was why she could still feel them.

“What now…?” she barely managed a whisper. She didn’t need to look; she could feel Kara beneath her, a dark warm mass supporting Atris against her chest. Atris simply tightened her hands in Kara’s robes.

“We leave,” Kara murmured, as if the answer was irrefutable.

“We?”

“Yes. I won’t leave you here to be swallowed like I was.”

A tight pang of pain shot through her chest and Atris curled, clenching her hands. She blinked at the gentle, gloved hand that came down on her head, smoothing over her hair. She wondered when it came loose. She wondered why Kara was so gentle with her in the first place.

The hand paused. “Because I didn’t think about the hurt I would cause you just by leaving.”

Atris lifted her head to look Kara in the eyes. They were still yellow, still tired, so _painfully_ tired—her throat grew thick. She finally released her grip on Kara’s robes and lifted a tremoring hand to her cheek. Kara said nothing at the touch, impassive on the surface. But there was a murmur of something soft and warm brushing against Atris’s senses and it made her chest tighten again.

She dipped her head until their brows met, her mouth curling into a grimace as her eyes grew wet again. She forced out a fierce whisper before her throat could betray her. “I should have gone with you.”

“You did what you believed was right.”

“But it wasn’t! We were— _I_ was—!”

“You can’t change it.”

Protestation died on her tongue and Atris swallowed hard, trying to control her breathing. When it steadied she blinked through the film of tears to take in Kara’s eyes again. She wondered if her own looked any different, even in colour, she hadn’t taken the time to look at herself since that woman came to her…

Kara’s mouth twisted in a grim line. “We have to stop her.”

Atris released a shaky breath. “I know,” she murmured. “I’m sorry.”

Kara smoothed a hand over her hair again. “Don’t be, just help me stop this.”

It came to her from the deepest recesses of her murdered desires, a rising impulse that grew and swelled until it could no longer be ignored as it was before. Atris pressed close and met Kara’s lips with her own. A needle of surprise pricked against her but it dulled quickly and the hand on her hair curled to support her head. She wrapped an arm around Kara’s shoulders and pressed against the length of her body, surrendering to years of neglected truths.But this wasn’t the time or place to give in, not fully, and she pulled away. “There isn’t time for this,” she muttered. “I…” the words slipped from her.

Kara gently tucked her hair behind her ear. “If we live maybe there’ll be enough time to figure it out, but not now, no.”

With a gentle push, Kara encouraged her to sit up, pulling away from each other completely before they left the bed. Atris felt unsteady on her feet and took slow, uncertain steps towards the refresher so she might put herself in some kind of order. She caught sight of herself in a mirror by her sparse wardrobe.

Yellow.

Her eyes were yellow.


End file.
